President pushes Obamacare (and "classic" guac recipe) on Twitter
After the Affordable Care Act survived its most recent Supreme Court challenge, President Obama declared the law is "here to stay." But given the continued political acrimony over the law, he isn't finished trying to promote it.
"Part of what I'm hoping is that with the Supreme Court case now behind us, what we can do is now focus on how we can make it even better," the president said of the health care system at a town hall event in Tennessee Wednesday.
"America still spends more on health care than any other advanced nation and our outcomes aren't particularly better," he continued. "My hope is on a bipartisan basis... we can now focus on what have we learned -- what's working, what's not working... Because of politics, not all states have taken advantage of the options out there."
Specifically, the president was referring to the fact that Republican leaders in some states have refused to adopt the expanded version of Medicaid, which would make the government-run health care system available to all low-income citizens in their state.
At Wednesday's town hall event, Mr. Obama took a few different questions from the audience about helping people who may be overlooked by government agencies. One Tennessee resident named James Davy Crockett told the president he's been turned down four times by Social Security. Earlier this year, the Tennessean reported that Crockett is, in fact, a descendant of the folk hero Davy Crockett, and that he likely suffers from Huntington's disease. While he has not been diagnosed, he watched his mother die from the devastating illness and shows similar debilitating symptoms.
Mr. Obama told the man that he'd ask the Social Security Administration to quickly revisit his case. He also sung a few lines of the Davy Crockett theme song.
After talking about the health care system at the Tennessee town hall, Mr. Obama addressed the issue Medicaid expansion, concerns over rising premiums and other health care questions on Twitter.
As he has in previous Twitter Q&A sessions, the president also answered a few light-hearted questions. This time, he jumped into a debate over guacamole ingredients.
